Along with hard-working Polish plumbers we have countless criminals from former Iron Curtain countries

Talk about life imitating Minder. A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of Scotch Harry, who landed in hospital done up like the Invisible Man after a botched safe-blowing.

That was in relation to the bandaged chancer pretending to be the heir to Downton Abbey, who lasted half an episode before vanishing without trace.

Now there’s another incarnation of the world’s most inept criminal. A thief is in a critical condition with severe burns he suffered while trying to steal metal from an electricity sub-station in Oldbury, West Midlands. Good.

The medium-to-well-done metal thief was dropped off at Birmingham City Hospital by a driver who sped away

Apparently, the sub-station exploded as he tried to strip copper cables from it. Even better.

In Minder, Scotch Harry was bundled out of the back of Arthur’s Jag into casualty. (Arthur initially contemplated dumping him on a skip.) He was eventually traced to Emergency Ward 10 by Cheerful Charlie Chisholm, who was unable to identify him because of the extent of his bandages.

The medium-to-well-done metal thief was dropped off at Birmingham City Hospital by a driver who sped away. Detectives investigating the attempted theft trawled local hospitals for patients with injuries consistent with electric shock. I have visions of Brum’s answer to Cheerful Charlie peering down at the suspect and muttering to himself: ‘I know those eyes . . .’

Step forward Detective Sergeant Carl Russell, who said: ‘The man has suffered extensive burns from his ankles up to his scalp. Sub-stations have huge voltages running through them and anyone tampering with them or trying to steal metal is putting their life on the line.’

Oh, dear, how sad, never mind.

Scotch Harry was smuggled out of hospital in an oversized pinstripe whistle before Chisholm could put a name to those horrible eyes.

Scotch Harry was, of course, ‘a person known to the police’. When the mastermind behind the Great Electricity Sub-Station Job eventually sheds his bandages, however, it is unlikely that Det Sgt Russell will be able to recognise him.

All we know is that the man is ‘thought to be Eastern European’. He is almost certainly not ‘known to the police’. Or immigration, or Revenue & Customs, or the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, Oldbury Council or anyone else outside his immediate circle of acquaintances, having been waved through Britain’s non-existent border controls like hundreds of thousands of others.

‘Thought to be Eastern European’ in a criminal context is, generally, code for ‘Romanian’ — although when it comes to drugs and extortion, it also encompasses ‘Albanian’.

Brodie Clark, the former head of the UK Border Force who has been resigned after guards quietly dropped certain passport checks

Romanians tend to specialise in cashpoint robbery and aggressive begging, though recently they have been extending their activities to stealing metal.

This was just one of the exciting benefits of EU expansion, so enthusiastically embraced by Labour as part of its grand plan to ‘rub the Right’s face in diversity’.

Along with hard-working Polish plumbers and assorted Lithuanian waitresses, we have also managed to import countless criminals from former Iron Curtain countries.

No one knows who they are, or how many of them are living here. If the police ever trace the vehicle which dumped Romanian Harry off at the hospital, you can guarantee it will be neither taxed nor insured and has probably been stolen. That’s if it hasn’t been torched in the pub car park under Spaghetti Junction.

Who thought it was a good idea to roll out the red carpet to undocumented Eastern European criminals? It’s not as if we haven’t got enough home-grown villains.

War veteran Cliff Cook at the desecrated war memorial in Carshalton, Surrey, where thieves stole the brass plaque with the names of fallen colleagues

Take Jake Telford, 17, who was jailed for selling memorial plaques from a churchyard for scrap.

Nicking metal is the fashionable crime de nos jours. It has reached epidemic proportions.

Organised gangs are stealing anything which hasn’t been nailed down. Or, in many cases, stuff which has been nailed down.

Robbing war memorials is beneath contempt. It is a crime against humanity. The culprits should be given exemplary sentences.

The bold Jake Telford got 18 months. He’ll be back on the streets in five minutes, snipping off his ankle tag with a Stanley knife prior to climbing through the nearest window or nicking the lead off the church roof. What kind of deterrent is that?

The most depressing aspect of this vile crime is that — in cash, if not in terms of morality — it’s two bob. Telford pocketed just £112.50 for the 169 memorial plaques he stole. That’s about 70p a pop. And for that, this little scumbag was prepared to desecrate the memory of men who gave their lives for his freedom.

I said recently that you can judge a nation by the quality of its crime. That was when it was revealed that thieves were stealing bags of old clothes left out for charity shops.

War memorials are merely the most sickening casualties of this latest disgusting crime wave. The coastguard in the south of England lost communications for 36 hours after thieves stole radio cables.

Network Rail reports there are up to eight attempted thefts of metals from railway lines every single day. So far, these thefts have caused 240,000 minutes of delays. The Stansted Express had to shut down after thieves half-inched overhead power lines.

In West London, crooks are even stealing manhole covers.

The energy network suffers 700 metal thefts each month, resulting in power cuts over wide areas. You can’t put a monetary value on the aggravation and distress caused.

MPs are calling for tougher laws to regulate ‘unscrupulous’ scrap metal dealers. When it comes to scrap metal dealers, the expression ‘unscrupulous’ is tautologous.

Unscrupulous is what they do for a living — and always have done.

Attempting to make them pay by cheque and demand ID from every Dale Farm lookalike who turns up with a trailer full of hooky telephone cables or purloined ‘In Memoriam’ plaques is like trying to force Arthur Daley to pay VAT.

This crime wave will only come to an end when the courts start handing down ten-year jail terms for receiving stolen metal. Until then we should start posting Army units at war memorials, with instructions to shoot on sight.

And with any luck, a few more thieves attempting to rob power sub-stations will light up like the cat in Tom And Jerry sticking his finger into an electric socket.

The good news is that the incompetent Scotch Harry impersonator in the West Midlands case suffered 60 degree burns.

The bad news is that he didn’t suffer 100 degree burns.

The rogue from Marrakesh

Mohamed Bouzalim entered Britain illegally ten years ago. Although Moroccan, he pretended to be an Afghan fleeing the Taliban because he thought it would help him obtain asylum.

Since then, he has been paid more than £400,000 in benefits by falsely claiming to be paralysed from the neck down. For years, no one bothered to check his claim.

His fraud was only uncovered when he was filmed dancing at his own wedding. He had travelled back to Morocco to get married.

Convicting him of dishonesty, a judge described him as a ‘malingerer’. But the Government says it has an ‘uphill struggle’ to deport him because of — you guessed — the Yuman Rites Act.

Bouzalim, who has a degree in Sharia law, even managed to prolong his trial by demanding an interpreter who spoke Berber. I thought that was a carpet. Apparently, it’s one of those multiple languages in scribble on the bottom of official documents.

Since he also claims to speak Farsi and Pashtu, you’d have thought he might have managed to pick up the odd word of English in the decade he’s lived here at taxpayers’ expense.

He turned up in court in a wheelchair, accompanied by two nurses, like Young Mr Grace. Incidentally, his brother and sister have been living here on benefits, too, although it isn’t clear what disabilities they claim to be suffering from. They’re both on bail, also charged with fraud.

To hell with their ‘human rights’, they should all be put on the first plane back to Morocco.

Labour peer Baroness Uddin is being allowed to return to the House of Lords, even though she has not repaid the £125,000 she swindled out of taxpayers through bogus expenses claims.

Never mind her 18-month suspension from the Lords, she should have spent the past 18 months behind bars.

It’s not Tesco’s finest . . .

Tesco has ended its support of Cancer Research and is sponsoring a gay pride festival.

Why?

I’m all for big business giving back to the community. But why choose a self-indulgent celebration of homosexuality over saving lives?

If gays want to dress up as Carmen Miranda or mince up and down The Mall in nothing but their knickers, that’s fine by me. But why would Britain’s biggest supermarket want to be associated with such an event, at the expense of cancer victims?

What exactly was the thought process behind Tesco's decision?

Try to imagine the board meeting which came up with that decision.

‘Item 4. As a company we believe in thanking our customers for their support by giving to charity. For the past ten years we have been backing Cancer Research. Now it’s time for a change. Any thoughts?’

‘How about Age Concern? Or Doctor Barnardo’s?’

‘I hear what you say, George, but let’s think outside the box.’

‘Maybe we should donate money to the British Legion, or Help for Heroes.’